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Let’s do a quick recap. Harvest of crops started in July. First crimson clover for seed gets combined and heads to the truck to the cleaners. Next it’s perennial ryegrass for seed, 1 week of working nights, trying to work days and in the end just being really dang exhausted. Finally back to days and combining, break downs and heat; all with green bean harvest thrown in the middle. Snap beans are machine harvested from the vines and head down the road to be cleaned, snipped and pureed for baby food. Finally it’s the wheat’s turned to get thrashed and taken to market. Lots of flour was harvested at this farm this summer. The next thing you know it is October and the squash are looking ready. Bright orange, yellow and red shades of squash are windrowed and lay out like an ocean over the dirt. Lots of slime later and those seeds are heading to the roaster for someone to enjoy down the road. And finally…here we are…filbert (hazelnut) harvest!! Crop 6 of 6 starts today at our farm!

We don’t have too many acres of hazelnuts and I can honestly say that it’s my favorite crop on our farm to harvest. Partly because usually (except for this Indian Summer we’re having this year) it is all fall weather, and I love the fall! Those crisp cool mornings and warm sunshine in the afternoon make for the perfect filbert harvesting weather. The other part is because we run our harvest with only our 4 full time employees, we all have our jobs and we all work together to get our crop harvested. During the other 5 harvests we all still have our specific jobs that we’re in charge of, but rarely do we all get to work together. I enjoy working with the other 3 guys and look forward to this every year.

So once filberts are all harvested off the ground, we have planting to finish up. Crimson Clover and perennial ryegrass will all go in the ground in the next few weeks. Then there’s fertilizing to be done on the established fields, spraying on the baby crops…but soon we will get to come up for air, sit back with some hot coffee, and enjoy winter time! Pictures to come on Wednesday of the whole process, stay tuned 🙂